There was a joke in the Princeton physics department: How
can you tell if a scientist is an extrovert? He looks at your shoes when
he talks to you.

It was true. And it made a man like Harold Avies a perfect
spy. Well, not a spy exactly, but a courier and delivering something
more significant and valuable on this one night than most spies tote around in
their whole career—Harold guessed; he had no way of knowing about spies. He was
a doctoral candidate in theoretical physics, not an expert in international
espionage. What he knew about spies, he knew from the movies. And he was
pretty sure what he knew was bunk. A spy shouldn’t be some suave, handsome
James Bond-type; he’d be remembered. Roger Moore walks into an empty
teahouse behind a brothel in Kamphaeng Phet and the lady says “Ohhhh, Simon
Templar, usual table?”

You didn’t want that in a secret agent. You wanted someone
who’d blend in, someone like Harold Avies. Thirty-odd people could have seen
him in the train coming down from Princeton. Would any of them remember him?
Would the porter in Gotham whom he’d asked directions when he changed trains?
Would Toni, the pretty attendant who showed him to his cabin? No, of course
not. Harold was spectacularly un-memorable, a science geek from Princeton who
looked at your shoes when he asked where to catch the Lakeway Express to
Metropolis, who remembered that? He would make a wonderful spy.

Not that it really mattered if Harold was remembered or
not. He’d never done anything like this before and there was no reason to think
he’d ever be called on to do it again. He only got the job because Rupert
Fantova was his thesis advisor. It really came down to being in the right place
at the right time… kind of the exact opposite of Cary Grant in North by
Northwest.

The lights flickered. Five minutes to curtain. Damn her.

A private box was not like an ordinary seat in the
orchestra. Because the comings and goings from the boxes would not disturb
other patrons, there was no difficulty seating latecomers after the show had
begun. Still, Clark said he’d seen Selina getting out of a taxi. She should
have been there by now. Bruce was anxious to hear what she learned, if it was
all just “Eddie being Eddie” or if there was an actual crisis brewing that he
and Clark should be worried about. The lights flickered again. The show was
about to start and now they weren’t going to be able to talk until
intermission. Damn her.

At the same time, bringing up “Eddie” was never an easy
prospect for Bruce. Balancing Batman with being Selina’s boyfriend was
normally as effortless as breathing. Something about the way they’d come
together as Bat and Cat, he felt truly himself with her, more than with
any woman he’d ever known. He didn’t have to juggle roles with either Selina or
Catwoman, he simply… was. Except when Edward Nigma was involved. That’s when
this delicate balancing act began and he was never quite sure who he was, where
he stood, and where it was safe to put his weight down.

The theatre lights lowered and, at last, Bruce heard the
soft latch of the door behind him. He heard the hushed whisper of the usher,
and then he felt more than heard Selina’s near-silent approach. He glanced in
her direction as she sat, curious why Clark had noticed her dress. It certainly
didn’t seem like anything remarkable.

“You’re late,” he growled softly.

“I’m worth waiting for,” she purred as the curtain rose.

The play began, but Bruce couldn’t concentrate on it. He
glanced at the dress again and began analyzing it. Black on top and off the
shoulder (which, okay, was very flattering with Selina’s black hair). Some kind
of black, white and grey print below—and short (which, okay, showed off her
legs very nicely). It was an appropriate outfit for “Bruce Wayne and Selina
Kyle out on the town,” but he still couldn’t see anything special about it.
What on earth was Clark talking about?

The audience laughed at the first joke of the show. Bruce
hadn’t heard the setup, but he took the cue when Selina chuckled. He faked a
smile and then berated himself for it. The smile he’d produced on short notice
looked too much like the vapid fop not getting the joke because he was too
stupid to know the reference. His quick adjustment looked like the vapid fop not
getting the joke because he was slightly inebriated. Luckily, it was a dark
theatre and everyone was watching the play. It was unlikely that anyone saw his
stumble, but it still wasn’t the sort of mistake Batman was accustomed to
making.

And speaking of mistakes he wasn’t used to making… Once
again, the audience erupted into peals of merriment, as if some karmic
laughtrack was mocking him… Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle were out on the town.
Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle were attending the theatre. Selina was dressed
appropriately for the occasion, and Bruce Wayne, once the country’s most
notorious womanizing playboy, had most definitely missed his cue—an
unforgivable lapse when Clark, the folksy farmboy, had actually prompted him.

“You look beautiful,” he said quietly. “That’s a nice
dress.”

Selina turned, very slowly, the darkness of the theatre
evoking nocturnal rooftops and empty museums, making it impossible for him to
see anything but Felinity in those gleaming eyes. She turned her attention back
to the stage, or at least she seemed to, and for a minute Bruce thought that was
the only response he would get. But then, after another few lines of dialogue
on the stage sent another titter of laughter through the audience, she spoke
without looking at him.

“You’re dying to know what happened today, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he replied, too quickly and too emphatically.

Then the playful grin, still without looking at him.

“You’re allowed to ask, you know.”

“Yes, but I didn’t want to interrupt the show… You looked
like you were enjoying it.”

“Oh I was, but not the one down there. I’ve enjoyed you
sitting there working yourself into a froth.”

He grunted.

“You spent the day with him, didn’t you. If you knew he
was pulling something right this minute, you’d have told me as soon as you
walked in. So there’s no point playing twenty questions now when the show has
two intermissions…”

“Mmm, So yummy,” Selina purred, as if savoring the caviar
canapé from the spa rather than the abrupt logic of Batman’s mind at work. “Why
everybody thinks Spitcurl is the charming one I will never understand.”

She reached into her purse and pulled out the slip of paper
bearing a single green question mark.

“Your clue,” she said, passing it to him.

He inspected it covertly, then slipped it into his pocket.

“No surprise there.” Then, after a beat, he added, “Thank
you.”

“Meow.” Then, after a similar beat, she added, “If it
matters, it was in a marshmallow.”

“In a marshma…? Do I even want to know?”

“Only if you’re interested in sampling the best hot
chocolate in the city before we leave. Lois told him about it. Seems she made
quite an impression.”

“She has that effect,” Bruce admitted.

He paused. Both seemed to watch the show for a few
minutes, during which another sputter of mirth from the karmic laugh track
seemed to mock him. Finally he spoke.

“So, did he track you around the city all day to keep up
the charade, or did he just walk right up to you like he would at the Iceberg?”

Selina explained briefly about his approach at the spa,
about the lunch and the sightseeing, and concluded that if it was Bruce’s idea
to turn Lex’s old office into a public skydeck, it was a vast improvement.

“No, that was Clark’s idea,” Bruce admitted. “He always
loved that view. Said it was the closest you could come to seeing the city the
way he does.”

The audience burst into enthusiastic applause as the lights
came up. The first act was over, but rather than get up for intermission, Bruce
reached over and touched Selina’s leg, indicating she shouldn’t get up yet. She
had turned to look at him, the brighter light levels shattering the moonlit
rooftop effect from before.

“…”

Somehow that made it worse. This would be easier to say to
Catwoman.

“Did he happen to mention the tigers?” Bruce asked,
appalled by the hint of trepidation in his voice (that Selina didn’t seem to
notice).

“You must be psychic,” she grinned. “He did mention them,
knows all about them. Which is pretty damn impressive, really, considering the
little one hasn’t found a favorite tree yet.”

“Some idiot at STAR left his notes on them lying out,”
Bruce graveled angrily. “Nig… Edward must have seen them when he was there.”

“On a Post-it,” Selina noted, touched but amused by the
reaction on both sides. “He expressed concern about that, actually. Doesn’t
think you’re ‘looking after my secrets’ very well.”

Bruce’s mouth dropped open, that careful balance between
Batman and Selina’s boyfriend toppled once again, this time by joint waves of
shock and relief—which he quickly covered behind a mask of irate battitude.

“This from the criminal mastermind who hasn’t
changed apartments in six years. Or ‘secret’ lairs in four. Anything else?”

“He was thrilled beyond words that you knew the third clue
would be ‘in,’” she teased.

A density shift radiated pure hostile intensity.

“I meant did he reveal anything else relevant to
the case?”

“Hm, let me think…” As always, Selina seemed immune to
that ferocious Bat-intensity that made hardened killers quake in terror—or
rather, instead of being terrified, she seemed warmed and aroused by it. “Oh,
yes! There was something else. The target, whatever it is, he said it’s
catworthy.”

Bruce went quiet, wheels-turning over the clues he had so
far, trying to put the pieces together into some shape that would make sense to
a mind like the Riddler’s…

Selina merely watched, until she heard him murmur
“catworthy;” then she realized the misunderstanding and touched his arm.

“I think I gave you the wrong impression there.
‘Catworthy’ wasn’t a clue; it was an offer. You know, like if I wanted to join
in. The target is catworthy.”

“No. He ‘honestly’ knew I was going to refuse, otherwise
he would have told me what the priceless target was instead of just saying
catworthy. But he asked anyway, and that was sweet of him.”

Bruce glared, and the lights flickered again, indicating
the second act was about to begin.

North by Northwest, now that was a spy picture.
Ordinary man thrown into extraordinary circumstances just by being in the wrong
place at the wrong time… Okay, strictly speaking, it was hard to buy Cary Grant
as an “ordinary man.” Harold Avies was an ordinary man. Cary Grant was CARY
GRANT. But North by Northwest was the spy thriller Harold kept
remembering, since he was on a train.

It wasn’t that easy to sleep on a train, at least it wasn’t
if you were on a mission like Harold’s. So he lay there thinking about spy
movies. Alas, no Eva Marie Saint had crossed his path, beguiling her way into
his sleeper compartment with a flurry of suggestive subtext. But no Martin
Landau had showed up to kill him either, so… No Martin Landau, no Robert Shaw
from SPECTRE, no Jaws from The Spy Who Loved Me, no creepy Germans from
The Lady Vanishes, and no entire IMF force including the Rich Little
lookalike from Mission Impossible…

Boy, the more Harold thought about it, trains were really a
terrible way to get around if you were a spy… at least in the movies.

Catwoman never claimed to understand detective logic. It
was entirely possible that Batman’s insistence on visiting each and every place
she’d been with Eddie that afternoon was a perfectly sound crimefighting
exercise. It was also possible that this was the man reacting more than bat.
He’d been moody through the last two acts of the show, moody through supper at a
quaint jazz club near the theatre, and moody on the cab ride back to the hotel.
Of course, the last wasn’t helped by the fact that it was a cab they were
riding in. The specter of Claudia Reisweiller-Muffington seducing Eddie by
removing her panties in the back of a taxi continued to haunt them after they’d
paid off the driver and returned to the room. Back in the room, Bruce obviously
couldn’t wait to get into costume and, as soon as he did, he declared the spa
would be their first stop. Selina hadn’t questioned it—although she did
question going out the window just to drop down a floor and come in through a
different one. What difference did it make if Batman and Catwoman entered the
hotel through Bruce Wayne’s room or George Ruderick’s? Batman growled and
grumbled, and in the end—even though breaking and entering was on her side of
the partnership more than his—she agreed to do it his way. So they made their
way through George Ruderick’s hotel suite and down to the spa. She showed him
the Relaxation Room where Eddie made contact and the corridor leading to the
women’s locker room where he’d waited while she got changed. She pretended not
to notice when Batman’s eyes flickered over the spa robes hanging on the wall
and then glanced at her legs.

“Yes, I was in the short one after my pedicure,” she
mentioned wickedly.

His reaction was… pleasingly nostalgic. Batman feigning
complete disinterest in her seductive teasing while his whole body radiated his
awareness of her as a woman. She purred. He grunted. And then, before the
growing tension could develop into anything, he turned to go. It was all so
vividly familiar.

They left the Four Seasons for the next destination: a
celebrated neighborhood café called Hot Chocolate. This entailed a short train
ride out to Sikela Park and minutes of heady physical contact that left him more
physically agitated than before. Selina was obvi—Catwoman, that is, Catwoman was obviously aroused by the experience, racing through the chilly
Metropolis night with only his grapnel—and his arms—holding her to the
speeding train. And Catwoman excited and aroused in that way was never
something he quite knew how to deal with. The more he shut down to her, the
more she affected him. By the time she’d picked the lock on Hot Chocolate’s
back door, he could barely concentrate. At the very least, he should have been
the one to break in. Sure, it might have taken him forty seconds longer to pick
the lock, but it would have given him something to focus on—something other
than the sight of Catwoman picking a lock. Through a haze of cat memories, he
entered the restaurant, examined the décor, the menu, and the table where Selina
and Nigma were seated that afternoon. Meanwhile, Catwoman looked over the menu.

“They have a Sunday Brunch,” she said casually.

Psychobat tuned her out. If-Tiny-In… Infinity… lemniscate
was the infinity symbol. Chocolates because Selina liked them. And
pussywillows… The tigers were looking more and more like an irrelevant
coincidence… or a deliberate red herring… but probably just a coincidence…
Catworthy… Catworthy. The bastard asked Catwoman—asked Selina—to “join in”
his criminal enterprise… and she said it was sweet of him. She said it was nice
to be asked…

Psychobat reminded himself sharply that that was
irrelevant—unless he thought she might have taken him up on the offer.
Was that a possibility he had to consider? Might Catwoman and Riddler be
working together now?

Bruce slammed the door on that thought: No, it was not
possible.

Well then, Psychobat insisted, if Catwoman wasn’t a
suspect, then he should stop thinking about her and focus on the case.

Then again, Batman thought suddenly, he wasn’t the only one
with cats padding around his thoughts on this case, now was he? If sending the
“E” to Selina had nothing to do with the tigers, if sending chocolates and
pussywillows had nothing to do with the tigers… then what was behind the
recurring cat-angle?

That question returned at the Art Institute. Selina said
they hadn’t gone inside; they just sat under the huge bronze lions and talked…

At first, Batman considered the lions in relation to the Dhumavati tigers and the Catitat, then he considered Selina herself, steps away
from one of the greatest art collections in the country and not bothering to go
inside. She just sat out front and chatted with her friend. Again, Psychobat
berated him for focusing on the irrelevant… and again, he countered with the
notion that Selina wasn’t irrelevant. Nigma himself was making her
central to… to whatever was going on.

The final stop of the night would be Selina and Eddie’s
final stop that afternoon: the LexCorp Skydeck. Batman thought it important to
tell Superman because of the Luthor angle. It did seem like their visit—and indeed Nigma’s whole afternoon with Selina—was just about sightseeing,
but you could never be certain with someone like Edward Nigma. Certainty led to
futile laps around the sun while your wife was being kidnapped. So Batman had
called Superman and, even though it would be “a few hours past my bedtime,” he
agreed to meet them at the base of the towers so they could all inspect the
Skydeck together.

While they waited for Superman to arrive, Catwoman decided
to “sharpen her claws” on the secret entrance she’d used to reach Luthor’s
office in the old days. She was curious if they’d closed the security holes
after she “got in that time” (read: “stole the plans for the top-secret X-27
airplane from Luthor’s own computer, deliberately tripped an alarm to make for a
more challenging escape, kidnapped Lois, tricked Superman into lifting an
elevator into position where it blocked Batman’s pursuit, made fools of Luthor’s
in-house armored security force in their own locker room before they could suit
up to come after her, and then, when finally captured, startled Superman into
dropping her with a sudden kiss—that he never did have the decency to mention to
Bruce—and ultimately escaped with less effort than villains who could transport,
shapeshift, or fly.” That she describes as “when she got
in that time.” Impossible woman.).

Batman let her go, “to see if they closed the security
holes,” although he already knew the answer: in one sense they had, but in
another they hadn’t. As always, Luthor’s paranoia about the Alien had
overridden all other considerations. He had to have his secret entrances and
secret passages, always shielded in lead, unknown to half his own staff, and
isolated on their own security grid. After Catwoman successfully broke in to
steal the X-27 “Lex-Wing” schematics, they tried to address the security flaws
she’d exploited. But with all of Luthor’s Superman baggage, they could only
treat the symptoms, not the cause. They replaced electric eyes with infrareds,
installed an extra grating inside a ventilation duct, added a few more
blackbelts to the Team Luthor security force and bought them lighter armor they
could quick-attach with velcro… In sort, they did nothing of consequence to
stop, or even slow down, an intruder of Catwoman’s abilities. If she was
breaking in today, Batman knew she would have been just as bored as she was the
first time.

But still he let her go to discover all this for herself.
He let her go precisely because she was bored. She liked to amuse
herself during any crimefighting exercise, and if he didn’t let her do it with
the tower security, she would probably do it with him—leading to god
knows what by the time Clark arrived. So he gave her a comlink, and she
disappeared around the back of the building.

Conviveal… That didn’t look right.

Lois added an “n.” Connviveal…

It still didn’t look right.

She rightclicked to check the online dictionary… And it
confirmed that the spelling was wrong, but that was it. The dictionary was
supposed to suggest the correct spelling based on the letters it had, but with
two reporters in the household, one of whom was also a member of the Justice
League, the Kent dictionary was customized with so many added words, proper
names, foreign terms, alien terms, ultradimensional terms and jargon that Lois
never trusted it. It might be giving her the proper spelling of convivial or it
might be giving her the correct spelling for the marriage contract by which the
queen of Junius 4’s third moon thought she was automatically betrothed to
Clark’s first male offspring.

Look now,
look at that.

Lois looked up at the television.

It is a chair,
what of it?

She was watching ROME, the complete first season on DVD.

A chair? That’s no chair, it’s a throne!

Lois wondered if spelling was easier in ancient Rome. They
had fewer letters. You could put a V in place of a U and nobody cared.

I believe thrones are generally more decorative. That is
decidedly plain, and chair-like.

As the men on screen debated the thronelike qualities of
Caesar’s chair, Lois reflected that TV shows coming out a season at a time on
DVD was the best thing that ever happened to the medium. Her nights alone were
random and impossible to predict in advance, so she had never been able to
follow a series with an ongoing plot. That left sitcoms and game shows, which
she despised. But now, now there was a whole world of ongoing drama opened up
to her that she could preorder from NetFlix, stack on top of the TV, and
whenever Clark was gone for the night, she enjoyed a mini marathon.

Tonight, she’d finished up LOST (with that boy who’d
played the hobbit who she found so appealing, like Mxyzptlk without the malice),
tried one Desperate Housewives but decided not to continue (something
about that Susan Mayer being such a ditzy klutz was strangely off-putting), and
postponed The Sopranos (having more than enough experience with real life
mobsters) in favor of this Rome epic.

While she watched, she was working on her Nigma notes.
Even though she’d agreed not to run with the kidnapping story when it happened,
there would be a Riddler story sooner or later. It was only a matter of time,
and thanks to the kidnapping, she had hours of exclusive material on the
riddling chatterbox. When the story finally did break, she would be ready: How
ironic that the most insightful coverage of the notorious Gotham rogue would not
come from any paper in the villain’s hometown but from the Daily Planet’s own,
(soon to be two-time) Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, Lois Lane…

The only problem was he was so damn connviveal… coniveal,
convi—friendly, for a kidnapper, he was exceptionally hospitable and friendly.

Roger Thornhill, that was the name of Cary Grant’s
character in North by Northwest.

Harold decided that if he needed to make up a name on the
spur of the moment, he should have one prepared. Otherwise, in the panic of the
moment, he’d probably say he was Harohnoalbert Eiseeafirehydrant.

So, not that there was any reason to think he’d have to
come up with a name on short notice, but if he did, he was Roger Thornhill.
Just like Cary Grant in North by Northwest. Roger Thornhill… Roger O
Thornhill, his initials were ROT… and the O didn’t stand for anything, he said…

Harold spent the next ten minutes introducing himself to
his reflection. Thornhill, Roger Thornhill…

Superman hadn’t realized the impossible awkwardness of the
situation until he approached the Lexcorp Towers and saw Batman waiting alone.
He was supposed to fly Batman and Catwoman up to the Skydeck that had
once been Luthor’s private office, but Catwoman was nowhere to be seen—and
that’s when the realization hit. It would be the first time the three of
them were together in that space since Catwoman stole the plans for the X-27.
It would obviously be uncomfortable, for everyone, but especially for Selina.
So, seeing Batman alone, Clark naturally assumed that she decided to skip this
part of the night’s investigation. He landed, resolving not to aggravate the
situation by asking embarrassing questions. Except—

“She’ll meet us up top,” Batman announced without
preliminaries.

“Wha-” Clark replied to avoid being truly speechless.

“She got bored—she gets bored easily when crimefighting
is involved—and she went to investigate her ‘alternate’ route up to Luthor’s
office. She’s well past the halfway mark, far enough that it’s better to keep
going than turn around and come back. She says she’ll meet us.”

Clark said nothing. He flew Batman up to the Skydeck
without a word. He looked around, always an unusual exercise in the LexCorp
Towers since every floor, door and wall was lead-lined. Since there was no way
he could visually gauge Catwoman’s progress, he listened for some clue as to her
location—and shuddered as he realized it was exactly what he’d done the night
of the break in. He glanced at Batman, who seemed unconcerned with the
situation.

“They could have come up in either elevator,” he noted
aloud, “Tickets torn at that station if they came up this way, or over there if
they came up on the penthouse side… Selina didn’t mention if they used any of
the viewfinders. We should check them all anyway. You take the ones on that
side.”

“Can I ask what you expect to find?”
Superman asked.

“Possibly nothing. Possibly some markings on the lens,
like the ‘pan then zoom’ clue he left at the sundial… Possibly something he
could have seen here that would set him off, or that he might reference later…
Possibly…” He trailed off as he approached a particular wall, the one he’d
inspected the night of the break in after Luthor swore there was “no other way
out” so Catwoman must have left through the open window. Batman had searched,
found a hidden release that opened the hidden door through which Catwoman had
really made her escape. Now that door was gone, and racks of Skydeck postcards,
ball caps, and cup holders confronted them from the space it once concealed.

“A gift shop,” Catwoman purred, emerging from behind two
obscenely large banners for the Metropolis Meteors. “Boy, if Lexxy could see
this.” She held up a plush bear wearing a Superman t-shirt and a red cape.
“Now that’s Karma.”

Batman’s lip twitched. Superman struggled
to find words.

“Hey, Spitcurl,” she greeted him with a smile.

It didn’t make finding words any easier, and again he stood
mute.

Batman asked which elevator they’d used that afternoon, and
she pointed to the one on the penthouse side. Together, they retraced the steps
she’d taken with Riddler, and Superman revised his assumptions. There was no
awkward embarrassment. It was as though Selina didn’t even remember the X-27.

“Lex-Wing, that’s what he called it, the X-27 Lex-Wing.”

Okay, scratch that. She did remember; she was talking
about it—with Batman—while they strolled back to the office side of the
Skydeck where the incident actually occurred.

“I mean, who would actually call an airplane a ‘Lex-Wing?’”
she laughed. “Didn’t George Lucas go after him for infringement or something?”

Clark expected Batman to answer with the icy finality he
used to shut down Wally or Eel when they were flippant in the field, but instead
it was Bruce’s voice that answered with relaxed indifference.

“Yes, settled out of court. It’s how Lucas got the money
to do the last three movies.”

The feline laugh became more strident.

“That explains a lot actually.”

The pair of them strolled up to him, almost casually, like
lovers walking along the river at sunset—then the Bat-density shifted as Batman
said, “We’re through here.”

“We are?” Clark asked, stupefied.

“It’s an observation deck; there really isn’t much to see,”
Batman said curtly.

“Oxymoron alert,” Catwoman teased.

“I had to inspect the space to eliminate the possibility
that a clue was left here more than actually searching for one.”

“Oh Handsome, please, a little pity for the kitty,” Catwoman
said, rubbing her head. “It’s been a long day and remember I had a headful of
Eddie to start with.”

“My point is,” he said, opting for short, clear sentences,
“I had to come here myself and see the place in person. Now we’ve been here. We’ve looked around. There doesn’t appear to be anything of concern. So we
eliminate that for now. There’s no clue here. There’s nothing important to
note. If something is referenced later, we’ll be able to recognize it.
The job is done for now.”

“Good,” she smiled. “Home, bed?”

He grunted, and Catwoman declared that her trip up the
secret entrance was enough “fun” for one night, and offered Superman the
Super-Teddy in exchange for a speed-fly back to the hotel.

A cartoon… about a mean-spirited talking milkshake, a box
of french fries with a goatee… and a meatball… sharing an apartment in the
suburbs of Bludhaven.

Eddie was starting to feel that sending clues to his
upcoming crimes in the form of a riddle really wasn’t that peculiar. Of
course, he never thought his particular brand of riddling criminality was
strange, but now that he’d seen this “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” (which as far as
he could tell had nothing to do with water, nor were they teens, nor were they a
force of any kind), he had to wonder how anyone could think leaving a simple
riddle at the Bat-Signal before a burglary in any way constituted abnormal
behavior. In a world where anthropomorphic fast food hanging in a Bludhaven
crib passed for entertainment, who was to say the residents of Arkham were any
crazier than the folks programming this Cartoon Network?

Not that it mattered. Eddie didn’t have to
watch the show (thank god). He just needed the likeness of a few characters for
an appropriate diversion. Now that Batman was in town, it was entirely
possible that Superman might figure out where he was preparing to strike and…
15 minutes. Selina said he’d solved it in 15 minutes. From the first
two pieces of the clue, he already knew the answer was ‘infinity,’ so the final
piece must be “in”… Damn, the man was good.

Unconsciously, Eddie rubbed the break point on his left
leg.

He was good. And he had Selina with him. It really
didn’t seem fair. Brains, money, muscles, hair, and a woman who could
keep up.

Eddie strung a wire across the back of a circuit board,
repositioned a bulb… and wondered if he shouldn’t have an anagram ready, just in
case. If Superman showed up, he wouldn’t use it. The diversion was meant for
him; it would defeat the purpose to come right out and tell the big blue oaf
that it was nothing but a way to keep overpowered, underwitted capes occupied so
he could carry out his plan without interference. But if Batman showed
up instead—Batman who could neither fly nor bend steel but who could
solve the Infinity riddles in less than 15 minutes—then it was only fair to
tell him the truth. NO MOB, BAT… That was rather good. NO MOB, BAT. For that
was the point. Not a bomb.

Superman could pick up a bomb, run it out to sea or hurl it
into the sun before Riddler had taken two steps towards his escape route. But a
bomb scare was something else entirely. He wouldn’t want to start a
panic: 4 trampled in stampede when Supermanheads off bomb squad.

Eddie chuckled at the imaginary headline,
adding the byline:
by Lois Lane, smarter than the rest of you Metropolis imbeciles put together.
The Man of Steel hurled a Lite-Brite into the sun today, evidently feeling the
image of an intergalactic milkshake giving viewers the finger was too great a
threat for local authorities to handle. Resulting panic among bystanders led to
a stampede killing 4 and injuring 7. Man of Steel expresses regret…

Despite the difficulty sleeping with scenes from sixty-odd
intrigue-on-a-train movies flashing through his head, Harold had left a six
o’clock call for breakfast, and at six o’clock precisely, Toni the pretty
attendant came knocking at his door—alas, still not like Eva Marie Saint
intent on charming his secrets out from under him, nor like the seductive
Tatiana Romanova bartering her favors and a Lektor decoder for safe passage out
of the Iron Curtain, but merely to announce the time and inform him the dining
car was open for breakfast.

So, breakfast… after a shower. Even spies
and couriers ate breakfast and took showers.

It turned out that six years of advanced study in the
finest science departments in the Ivy League were no match for the shower
controls in a Lakeway Express sleeper compartment, but Harold eventually managed
a hot, steamy shower which left him shivering as he made his way to the dining
car. He confined his interaction with staff and fellow passengers to that of
any Princeton physics “extrovert”—he ordered coffee and a Southwestern omelet
and looked out the window as he ate. He returned to his cabin and checked his
watch. In a few hours, they’d be arriving in Metropolis.

Even for Batman, it was a full night: the theatre, jazz
club, spa, restaurant, art institute and the Skydeck—coming after a full day
of the Daily Planet, STAR Labs, the Fortress of Solitude, and STAR Labs again,
that nagging background tension building all the while because Selina was out
there with Nigma. It was an exhausting day and Bruce crashed hard when they
returned to the hotel. He slept deep and dreamt of question marks stalking him
through the Dhumavati death maze and Dr. Hamilton releasing tigers from the
Phantom Zone. One of the tigers caught him on the LexCorp Skydeck and the rake
of its claws seemed to pass right through his armor. It felt just like
Catwoman’s claws—but not tearing into his flesh, more of a persistent nudging.

“Bruce, Bruce, wake up. You have a phone call.”

The armor dissolved into a soft goosedown duvet, and the
tiger’s claws into Selina’s ungloved hand.

“What time?” he murmured sleepily.

“9:30.”

His eyes opened, he registered the white of the unfamiliar
ceiling, the warmth of Selina’s nudge, and the memories of Metropolis and the
Nigma case in one wave of realization. Then he looked up at her with far more
malice than he had when Catwoman really had scratched up his chest like the
dream-tiger she just supplanted. The last thing he remembered before sleep was
her ordering breakfast on the little card the hotel provided. She’d asked what
he wanted, he said he didn’t care, she said she’d get him a waffle… and then she
got up to leave the card on the doorknob, saying she’d checked off 12 noon for
room service to deliver it, the latest time they had a checkbox for unless… and
that was it. He was asleep by the time she got back.

“You said they weren’t delivering breakfast until noon,” he
growled, sitting up. “Why is it so early?”

“It’s not breakfast, you have a phone call,” she repeated.
“Her name is Winn, from the Daily Planet. Lit button to pick up.”

He blinked again, swallowed, and was full awake. Paula
Winn would never call him over a trifle; it would take something big for her to
overcome her terror and actually initiate contact. He took the call while
Selina stumbled sleepily off to the shower…

When she returned, Bruce was dressing—or rather Batman
was—the Justice League comlink lay open on the bed and he was cursing into it
while he struggled with the cape.

“Of course he did it on purpose, Clark. Now make whatever
excuses you have to and—Damnit (that to the cape)—that whole thing yesterday
was a ruse (that to her, she guessed). He knew I’d have to check out all the
places you went together; he knew I’d be up all night doing it, and that gave
him this morning to strike.”

“Of course we do. Einstein’s notebooks?! It fits the
infinity clue, and to an intelligence-obsessed mind like Nigma’s, Albert
Einstein’s personal notebooks are as ‘catworthy’ as a target can get.”

..:: Yes, I agree. I’m not disputing that’s what he’s
after. I’m just saying that all the stops with Selina yesterday wasn’t
necessarily a deliberate—::..

“I warned him if he ever used her again I’d—”

“Hi,” Selina interrupted, yanking the cape into position
and claiming his attention at the same time. “Einstein notebooks?” she asked,
now fussing with the cape and emblem the way another woman might tie her
husband’s tie.

..:: Good morning, Selina,::.. the comlink called
cheerily.

“Morning, Spitcurl,” she replied without turning her eyes
from Bruce. “Einstein notebooks?” she asked again.

“Paula Winn is on the board of the Science and Industry
Museum,” he explained briefly. “I asked a lot of questions about it yesterday. To be honest I was just trying to get some lifesigns;
she tends to panic whenever she meets me. Now it turns out I asked so many
questions that it penetrated the fog, she gets that I’m interested in the museum
and invited me to sit in on this acquisition they’re making today—this morning.”

“Einstein notebooks.”

“Right, along with a few personal artifacts. The transfer
happens at eleven. The courier’s train is getting in any time now. Clark’s
flying out now to escort it in. That shifty bastard, he knew we’d be up all
night revisiting all those—”

“Yeah, you did that part already, and it sounds like there
isn’t time to argue about it. So…” she paused just long enough to kiss his
cheek “…You and Spitcurl give him hell…” kiss “…Save the day…” kiss “…Don’t
break his legs again unless you have to…” kiss “…Then come back, wake me up, and
we’ll split a waffle.”

..:: Bruce, seriously, you need to marry that girl.::..

In 1912, a consortium of railroads formed to commission a
new railway station in downtown Metropolis. They wanted a station “befitting
the city’s status as America’s railway hub.” They wanted a station “to make an
architectural impact.” What they really wanted was a station to outshine
Gotham’s Grand Central Terminus. The Beaux Arts colossus was completed twelve
years later. Visitors were awed by a cavernous “Great Hall” that measured
20,000 square feet. Flanked by soaring Corinthian columns, pink marble floors,
terracotta walls, and crowned with a five-story, barrel-vaulted skylight,
everything about the station was engineered to impress. Built—and, in fact,
overbuilt—for the grandiose taste of Midwest robber barons, the station was
one of the few significant buildings in the city to escape branding by LexCorp
in the guise of a restoration. Even Luthor could find nothing to expand, gild,
or enhance the sprawling structure. Although the station could handle as many
as 400,000 passengers per day, only about 100,000 passed through in its heyday
in the 1940s. Today, that number had dwindled to a few thousand on a good day.
The station had two sets of tracks, ten leading northbound and ten southbound.
Capable of handling more than 700 trains in a single day, there was only one
passenger train arriving this morning.

Harold Avies stepped out onto a crowded platform bustling
with passengers boarding the outbound Texas Eagle on the adjacent track, and
deafening with the engine noise of several nearby commuter trains. A Redcap
arrived with a luggage cart, as he would to deliver any first-class passenger to
the Metropolitan Lounge, but Harold waved him away. He had no luggage beyond
the student backpack slung over his shoulder, and the industrial-looking
briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. It was an incongruous image: the awkward,
scruffy grad student with his toothbrush and a change of underwear in a worn
canvas backpack, carrying this monstrous titanium attaché that looked like
something they took out of the Swiss bank vault in the Bourne Identity.

Harold looked around, hoping for a sign to ground
transportation so he could find a taxi, when he saw a very different type of
sign: AVIES. It was a chauffeur, an actual uniformed chauffeur holding a
handwritten sign with his name, just like in the movies. Harold shifted his
weight and looked around, unsure how to proceed.

“Eh, you from the science museum?” he squeaked, looking (in
true science geek fashion) at the man’s shoes.

“Yessir,” the chauffeur replied.

“Cool,” Harold nodded. “I mean, uh, YES, I mean, I’m
Harold Avies.”

The chauffeur began leading him through the terminal, and
Harold started to ask the question all first-time visitors ask of taxidrivers
and hotel clerks in Metropolis… “Have you ever seen Superman?” …when all hell
broke loose.

First there was a weird bluish shadow washing across the
huge vaulted skylight, and a few lucky folks who looked up in time squealed and
pointed as they caught a glimpse of costume or cape. Then everyone could see
Superman, standing there—or, well, more like floating there, right over their
heads, right inside the train station hovering under the skylight.

“Wooww,” Harold managed, a breathy exhale of pure awe.

“Stay right where you are, Rid—” the Man of Steel
began—when a squealing high-pitched alarm sounded and a squad of men like a SWAT
team ran in from three different entrances and ordered everyone to move quickly
but calmly towards the exits.

Superman didn’t question them but lowered to the ground at
once—Harold guessed he was going to talk to the SWAT guys and find out what
was going on. Harold could only guess because the chauffeur was half-pushing
him/half pulling him towards the door, almost like a bodyguard, so Harold really
didn’t get a chance to see what else happened inside the station. He thought he
heard the words “bomb threat” “check up there” and “Mooninite,” but there was
no time to even think about that before they were outside, racing towards a
green and black van as if they were running from gunfire or the station was
about to explode into a big end-of-the-spy-movie fireball. The back of the van
opened, and it seemed like the chauffeur was going to shove him inside—as if
Harold himself had the secret data locked in his head and had to be protected
from snipers lying in wait—when all of a sudden, just as he was almost
inside—the whole van lifted right off the ground and went soaring into the air!
—And a big black blur that turned out to be BATMAN came swinging out of
nowhere! Right through the empty space where the van had just been! —And went
soaring boots first into the chauffeur’s gut!

The rest was a blur of green gas bulbs, whizzing Batarangs,
flying capes and pounding fists—entirely too much excitement for Harold who,
despite having Jason Bourne’s safe deposit box shackled to his wrist, was just a
grad student from Princeton, New Jersey! He did what anybody with an IQ of 190
would do, he ran!

He ran like mad, into the traffic lane, nearly getting
clipped by a bus as he went, visions of Roger Thornhill running from the crop
duster in North by Northwest merging into James Bond racing away from a
helicopter in Russia with Love—the menace from the skies no longer confined to
his imagination as news helicopter whirred overhead, proclaiming itself
SuperStation WLEX, then in smaller print, “An Eye on Metropolis”—Too late,
Harold realized that no spy worth his double-0 would stop to read the
advertising tagline on the helicopter—in the time it took, the traffic light
changed and cars were heading his way in both lanes! Again he did what anybody
with an IQ of 190 would do, discovering this time that he’d somehow, in his
panic, run full circle and was back at the green and black van, and back in the
heart of the battle in front of the train station.

Again he found himself surrounded by a blur of green gas
bulbs, whizzing Batarangs and flying capes—and again, he did what anyone with
an IQ of 190 would do (after running had failed twice)—He hid!

At least he kept trying to hide, but every time he
crawled under something, Superman picked it up!

Finally, in sheer desperation, he sprinted back INTO the
train station, colliding with members of the SWAT team on their way out carrying
a— a— Harold blinked, finding himself staring into the cold LED eyes of
Ignignokt the Mooninite from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, as a kind of chemical
reaction occurred in his brain, the sheer absurdity of the image reacting with
the hours of anxious boredom and fantastic daydreams on the train, catalyzed by
the panic of the last minutes… Harold suddenly found himself utterly confident,
composed and serene.

“Excuse me,” he told the SWAT captain politely, looking the
man in the eye. “I didn’t see you there.”

Before the officers could explain that the train station
was still closed to the public, Superman lowered into position beside them and
tapped Harold on the shoulder.

“Are you the young man from Princeton bringing the Einstein
Notebooks to the Science Museum?” he asked in the tone one might use to avoid
spooking an injured animal.

Harold turned, looked Superman straight in the eye, and
offered his hand—cuffed briefcase and all.

“Avies,” he said, with all the suavity of a double-0
operative. “Harold Avies.”